UK couple Charlotte & Thomas flew in with family and friends for a spectacular wedding on the island of Crete.
Their wedding ceremony took place in the foothills of the White Mountains of Chania at the Botanical Park. Surrounded by Cretes flora and fauna and dressed with over 2500 roses for the lovely bride to walk on.
Afterwards, they took their 100+ guests to a winery for the reception and party.
- Wedding planners: Crete for Love
- Wedding dress designer – Rebecca Ingram– ‘Linda’ dress, added a jewelled belt for extra sparkle
- Bridal shoes – Benjamin Adams
- Veil was from Joyce Jackson
- Bridal Jewelry White sapphire drop earrings from Athens and bracelets were given by a friend
- Bridesmaids dresses – David’s Bridal
- Groom’s suit- Moss Bros
- Groom’s shoes- Moss Bros
- Stationary: Crete for Love
Second shooters: Agie & Sofia
Couple’s interview at bottom of the page.
COUPLE’S INTERVIEW
Charlotte & Thomas
- A brief story of how you met each other:
Charlotte and Tomo met on a freezing cold UK night in March 2012. (Maybe that’s one of the reasons we decided to get married in Crete). Charlotte worked with Tomo’s best friend’s girlfriend who invited Tomo to join them for some after work drinks. We instantly clicked, and as they say the rest is history.
- Where did you get married and why did you choose this place? What’s the name of the venue/church of the wedding ceremony? Did you have any special car or means of transportation? What was the most exciting moment of the wedding for you?
Tomo’ response
Having grown up in the UK we had both been to many ‘Summer’ weddings in the UK that had been on rainy days. We decided we really wanted to get married somewhere the sun would be shining, but also somewhere special to us.
In the summer of 2015 we had been on holiday to the Chania región of Crete and we had fallen in love with it. We loved the atmosphere and how relaxed everyone was. One afternoon we had gone to the Botanical Park of Crete (in the hills 20 km south of Chania). We had had a glass of wine whilst watching the breathtaking sunset over the Cretan White mountains.
When we got engaged the following April Charlotte instantly suggested the Botanical gardens for the wedding as it has an amphitheatre overlooking the hills that would be perfect for the ceremony,
In June 2016 we first met Crete for Love team, and Anna showed us a few further venues. In particular, she took us to the Manousakis Winery that was the most beautiful winery. It is situated 15 minutes from the Botanical gardens.
It was whilst relaxing on the beach, watching another perfect sunset, that we decided we would do the Ceremony at the botanical park of Crete and the reception at the Manousakis Winery. The idea was born but then the planning started. Anna and the Crete for Love team introduced us to some truly fantastic vendors. In particular, Green Factory who did the flowers were spectacular and exceeded our expectations.
We were lucky enough to have 104 of our Friends and family fly out to the Crete to join us for our wedding. On the day Anna had organised it so that the guests were transported by coach and that Charlotte would arrive by wedding car to the venue.
On the day the Botanical gardens looked like something out of a fairy tale. The flowers were above all expectation and the services from the staff were amazing.
I think as in many weddings the real highlight was when Charlotte walked down the aisle. We had George a local guitarist sing a versión of the Beegees How Deep is your love, that was perfect for the day. The late afternoon light showed Charlotte’s dress off so vibrantly that it seemed you could see her aura, she looked stunning.
After the ceremony, the guests were transported to the Winery that had also been dressed to an incredible standard. The atmosphere was perfect and the evening went better than we could have dreamed.
I think the highlight for many was Charlotte’s dad’s speech. It was a perfect mix of humor and emotion. It seemed everyone was laughing and crying simultaneously.
Charlotte’s response
In addition to the above, my favourite moment was seeing the decorations and flowers at the Botanical Garden and the Winery. It was absolutely perfect and it accentuated the venue’s natural beauty.
- Tell about your wedding dress – who did it and why did you choose it? Tell about the details of the bride’s look – shoes, bouquet, accessories – did you have a meaningful jewel? Tell about the make-up and the hairdo, how did you choose it?
The dress is called “Linda” and it is by Rebecca Ingram. I loved the elegance and simplicity of the dress although I added a jewelled belt to accentuate my waist and add some sparkle. I wanted to look classic but romantic and that’s why I chose a full-length veil which had lace detail. I wore sapphire drop earrings which Tomo bought me when we went to Athens in 2016. I also wore a tennis bracelet for some extra sparkle.
I wanted my hair to be up as I don’t normally have my hair up, and it had braids going into a big bun at the back. Lots of hairspray was needed to keep it all in place! For my makeup, I love a bronzed and sun-kissed look. We did quite a smoky bronze eyeshadow, using layers of brown, pink and metallic bronze eyeshadow. The makeup was Chanel and it lasted all day. The makeup artist Maria was amazing!
- Tell about the groom’s suit
As Tomo and his groomsmen were not used to the Cretan summer we decided to go for light blue linen suits. We bought these from a UK based shop called Moss Bros. Tomo wore a pink tie from Saville road and the other boys wore blue tie to differentiate from Tomo.
- Tell about your wedding planner – how did it go with them? How did you choose your wedding planner?
Charlotte and I had always wanted to get married outside the UK where we live. After being to Crete on holiday a few times we fell in love with the island. Therefore after getting engaged, we decided Crete and the Chania region was the answer.
Luck had it that we found Crete for Love s Instagram page and we looked at their website to see what other types of weddings they had done. The service they provided was far beyond what we could have expected.
We planned a fairly large wedding in regards to what for us was an abroad wedding. We had 104 guests with the ceremony at the botanical park in Chania and the reception the Manousakis winery.
Crete for love s service was exceptional and very good value. We first visited Anna a year before the wedding and she showed us many possible venues (all part of the service). After deciding on the venues Anna and Stavriani put in hundreds of hours work helping us choose the vendors (the vendors they deal with are all extremely professional and many guests commented on how great everyone is. The Crete for love team also managed to get us some great deals) and worked with us to create the wedding of our dreams.
Simply without them, the wedding we wanted would not have been possible. I could not recommend them more highly. From start to finish a complete and excellent service
- Tell about your wedding reception – what kind of menú did you choose? How did you choose your decor? Did you have a theme for your wedding? If so, why did you choose it?
As many of our guests had never been to Crete before it was important to us that we had typical Cretan food as they could get a taste of the local food.
The decor was not too difficult to organise as the winery is so naturally beautiful that we did not need a huge amount of accessories however the table decoration was important for us. In addition, Crete for Love have many things in their inventory that added to the evening such as a large lit up ‘LOVE’ sign.
For the table decoration we had a specific visión to incorpórate greek style design and luckily we found some great ‘urn’ style vases in the UK that were about 30cm high. We shipped these to Anna in August. We had 5 long tables and on each of these, we had 3 large tall flower displays as well as two short long displays. Again these were produced by Green Factory. For the color scheme of the flowers, we wanted pinks and creams accented with deep red for a romantic feeling. We also had wedding favours as we wanted our guests to take back a small part of Crete with them. For this, we arranged a small pot of honey for each guest as well as a bag of traditional mountain tea. We used local vendors to support the community.
We also worked with Crete for Love to produce customised stationery for the day, and so we had bespoke menus, order of the ceremony fans and napkin name places. I wanted a touch of glamour so the graphic designer created us a logo with our initials and we got these gold plated to add some luxury.In regards to food, we had local dishes that were shared on the tables family style, along with the local wine from the winery. It was the best food we had all holiday!We also had a great dessert table and cocktail bar that kept the guests entertained all night.
- What was the song of the first dance? Why did you choose it?
The song is called (what a) Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. Its a classic 60s Motown song, and we chose it because we loved the lyrics
“Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about a science book,
Don’t know much about the french I took
But I do know that I love you,
And I know that if you love me, too,
What a wonderful world this would be”
- How did you choose your photographers/videographers?
Anna recommended to us Andreas, and he is just the easiest guy to get along with, as well as being a superb photographer. Many of our guests commented that he actually made taking the ‘formal’ photos fun; which is rare in weddings. Very happy with our choice.He also used a drone to get some great aerial shots, which gave an angel that few get to have.
- Any anecdote or special moment that you want to share with us
At the end of the night, buses were arranged for the guests to get back to the hotel. We decided to join them and everyone was singing songs on the way back and the party atmosphere continued!
The speeches were also very memorable and poignant.